The Fitness Tracker for Fido

The Whistle

It was only a matter of time before fitness trackers – like sweaters, hiking boots, and beauty salons before them – were re-imagined as a product for dogs. The Whistle, a silver disc that clips onto a pooch's collar and tracks their activity levels during the day, is just that and it makes keeping tabs on your best friend that much easier.

Our Standard Poodle wasn't bothered when we stuck the 1.5-inch Whistle on his collar – Labradors and Goldens shouldn't mind either. Turned on, the device linked into our home WiFi network and sent hourly updates to the cloud, where we could retrieve them through an app on our phone.

Unlike human fitness trackers, Whistle doesn't count steps. Instead, it records the total minutes and intensity of an activity. It recognizes when you've taken your dog for a regular walk, versus letting him run around in a park. It was very accurate in our testing, giving the exact minutes for walk lengths and showing high levels of intensity (on the day's graph) when our pooch was off the leash and running. The Whistle gets about seven and a half days of juice on a full charge, which isn't great, but its easy to charge.

It's a good feeling when your dog reaches the daily activity goal set by the app, which groups results by breed so you can get a sense of whether your dog is falling behind the pack. The price may be a bit high for a device that will – in all likelihood – simply confirm your suspicion that your dog is lazy, but the Whistle is still a great way to make sure he's not too lazy. [$129; whistle.com]